


Home

by Charmtion



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Healing, Homecoming, Hopeful Ending, Post S8, a Time for Wolves...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-14 14:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charmtion/pseuds/Charmtion
Summary: Rumours reach her, slow and soft as snowflakes drifting from cloud to cobble. A ghost in black glimpsed beyond the Wall, a white-and-ruby shadow at his side. Sansa keeps her face as ice-carved as it always is, head tilted just so to listen, hand half-lifting from the ironwood arm to dismiss them once their tale is spun. Like a spider’s web, it hangs: gossamer threads tangling at her heart, silk slicing through blood and bone like steel, pushing in through the wounds that most lethal of weapons —hope.Sansa sits as queen at Winterfell, Jon walks the Lands of Always Winter; but soon the threads of time will spin them back together — and they will both be home [post8x06].





	Home

_Queen in the North_ , it is a chant that rocks the rafters, a cry of thanks when the granaries are filled, a cradle-charm mothers sing their babes to soothe them sound to sleep, a chorus lifting up to fill northern skies thick and free as snowflakes. _Queen in the North_ …

Half a year she has heard it. From familiar faces and foreign lips alike, it flies sleek as a raven’s wings, stirs the air with the echoes of its beat. _Queen in the North_. A thousand letters she has signed, scratched its curves with quill and ink and stamp; ash-dark wax on moon-pale parchment. _Queen in the North_ … Replies come swift as they always do, borne by soft-stepped stewards, bowing and scraping as they set the scrolls in her palm.

Sansa reads each and all — proclamations, pledges, promises — with a line between her eyes, a downward curve to her rosebud lips. She rolls each and all back up; most of them find the flames. She watches them burn, each and all — proclamations, pledges, promises — cursing herself for a fool to find herself wishing just _one_ of them would be the letter that she seeks. A reply to a raven she sent half a year ago, before all the others found their wings. _That_ letter she signed as herself, not a queen — only _Sansa_ , ash-dark ink on moon-pale parchment, a snowflake spinning north on glossy ebony wings.

Outside, the snow is falling. Drifts of it settle at the windows, smoking up the glass with its chill. Sansa runs a fingertip down the windowpane; bite of ice stings her skin, but she does not flinch. _Queen in the North_ … In the darkwood hearth, the last letter slowly turns to ash — her heart along with it.

 

*

 

At each village, he loses ever more of the folk that follow him. _Whitetree, Lake’s Edge, Mountainside_ … They pause at each for time enough to untie bundles from the baggage train, set right crooked roofs, share fireside broth for a final time, raise a toast in bone-and-pewter cups to hearth and home and heart tree — then half of them shout their goodbyes, wave their well-wishes, and half of them continue on, packing the snow hard as stone beneath hoof and boot and rumbling wayn.

Half a year passes before they reach Ruddy Hall. It rises like a dream, the darkwood longhouse at the crook of two sloping hills. There are bones in the yard, holes in the thatch, a strange spiral half-covered by new snowfall. Tormund kicks at the pattern with the toe of his boot till it is scattered as ash to the wind. He looks about, arms outstretched, head tipped back to feel the weak sunlight on his cheeks.

“Home,” he says, smile so wide it cracks the ice on his fiery beard. “Home at last, Jon Snow.”

Jon hopes his own smile looks heartfelt, even as his ribs close as iron bands about his chest and ice pools in his belly. _Whitetree, Lake’s Edge, Mountainside, Ruddy Hall_ … He looks about, lifts his eyes to the snow-dusted hills, lowers them to chase the shadows cast by the winter sun across the steep-sided longhouse. _Home_. True, the ground shakes with all the noises — doors thrown back on their hinges, women singing, children giggling, horses stamping, fires fed back to life — of home; but the heart is missing.

He lowers a hand to find the comfort he seeks: soft white fur at his side, ruby eyes burning like two great red suns — but Ghost is gone. Iron bands close tighter on his chest, before he hears the scuffle of pawprints behind him, follows their tread to the brow of a low hill where the wolf sits, silver-shot by the sunlight. Jon moves to his side, kneels beside him, throws an arm around the wiry white shoulders wide as a weirwood tree.

Ghost does not turn to look at him, only keeps his great red eyes fixed on the horizon. Jon follows the wolf’s gaze: south, toward the Wall — toward _Winterfell_. Quietly, the sun dips and sinks, throws its last sliver of light across the hills: fire-red, like Ghost’s eyes, like auburn hair caught in the glow of candlelight.

 

*

 

Dawn strikes its flames upon the hills, crimson coming before the gold. _Kissed by fire, the wildlings might call it_. Sansa tries to shake _that_ thought from her head as she stands on the battlements, watches the morn turn the castle a play of red-and-gold beneath a snow-heavy sky. She walks the curtain wall, skirts cutting a path upon the snow-swept stone, gloved fingers linked behind her back.

One of the hounds has followed her up from the kitchens, keeps as close to her heels as a shadow. Sansa rubs a hand between its soft brown ears, takes some comfort from the soft brown eyes that gaze up at her; but if anything, the dog only makes her miss the company of wolves a little more. _Lady, Father, Robb, Rickon, Arya, Bran, Jon_ … All of them gone, half scattered as ash to the wind, half roaming far from her as the raven flies. She walks on before grief can catch at her, twist its crooked fingers deep as roots within her heart.

Come noonday, she takes the lord’s seat at the head of the hall. Ironwood kisses down her back, snarling direwolves bristle beneath her fingers; she sits it as if it was carved only for her, the candlelight catching at the crown circling her brow. _Queen in the North_ … Again and again, those words simpered honey-sweet as petitions are read, charges plead, plans proposed. She listens as a lord, decrees as a king — intones it all with the wisdom of a woman. _Queen in the North_. As the candles burn down to stubs, the council comes to an end; lord and lowborn alike leaves with a light step and a lighter heart to hear that all is well in this little world ruled by Winterfell.

Dusk sees no more ravens find perch in the rookery, but at the hearth in her chamber she finds a gift near as sweet as any letter. Soft and brown, stretched on the fire-warmed rug like autumn leaves on a forest floor; but as the little dog lifts her head, Sansa sees that her soft brown eyes have hints of gold. _Like Lady, like a little wolf_. She sits at a chair by the hearth, taps a palm to her thigh with a smile warm as firelight.

“Come then, little lady,” she says softly, and the little brown dog settles on her lap.

 

*

 

Tormund throws a feast when the last gap in the thatch is patched over. The longhouse is a swirl of woodsmoke and drifting woodwind-whistle; cups clank, men laugh, a singer takes up a lonely tune. _I loved a maid as red as autumn, with sunset in her hair_ … Jon closes his eyes to the longing he feels as those sweet-sad words ebb up from the singer’s tongue, feels his heart creak beneath the iron bands that bind it so tightly.

“Time you set out for home, little crow.”

Jon blinks to find Tormund sat opposite him. “Ruddy Hall isn’t my home?”

“Would be if you let it, this little hall o’ mine halfway lost amongst the Frostfangs.” Tormund gives a sad little smile, pushes a bone-cup of mead across the tabletop. “Feast and fireflame, meat and mead… what more could any man want? _More_ , that’s what _you_ want, Jon Snow.” He points a finger, grin growing broader. “So come the morn you’ll take your horse and that great bloody wolf o’ yours and ride hard for home.”  

Jon tries to smile, but finds that his face is half-frozen. “I don’t know where it is anymore, Tormund.” His voice is a brass-hinged creak. “My home.”

“There.” Tormund reaches out, taps Jon’s chest firmly with his finger. “Just _there_. Follow it and you’ll see, little crow.”

Bone-cups clank together; mead sloshes over the lip, turns hands sticky as a honeycomb. Jon sucks the shine off his skin, gives a smile as — _slowly_ — iron bands begin to loosen.

 

*

 

Rumours reach her, slow and soft as snowflakes drifting from cloud to cobble. A ghost in black glimpsed beyond the Wall, a white-and-ruby shadow at his side. Sansa keeps her face as ice-carved as it always is, head tilted just so to listen, hand half-lifting from the ironwood arm to dismiss them once their tale is spun. Like a spider’s web, it hangs: gossamer threads tangling at her heart, silk slicing through blood and bone like steel, pushing in through the wounds that most lethal of weapons — _hope_.

She tamps it down as spring bulbs into soil, hopes darkness might smother it. Instead it grows, reaches roots deep into her belly, blooms like winter roses around her heart till her ribs are feathered by its petals, her throat coated in its honey-sweet sap. Day by day, week by week, beat by beat; it stays steady as the blood coursing the valleys of her veins, blazing colour at her cheeks, pulling at the strings of her face till a smile breaks like banked cloud beneath the sun.

Blue as frost, the clutch of winter roses she finds amongst the beds of beet and barley in the glass gardens. She picks one, takes it with her to the world of ice and iron that rests below the grey stones of Winterfell. The crypts have long been reordered, the magic that awoke them burned and banished; yet she carries the dragonglass dagger at her hip even so, runs a thumb across its pommel as she walks amongst shadows and stone spectres limned softly by torchlight.

 _Father, Robb, Rickon, Lyanna_ … They stare out at her, eyes placid as the hands kept folded atop their stone laps. Petal by petal, Sansa pulls apart the winter rose; a blush of blue frost, it scatters, catches at smooth-carved shoulders, lips, fingers, crowns. Her aunt beckons to her, granite palm outstretched. Sansa takes a wick and lights the candle cupped there, watches as the flame limns Lyanna’s lovely face, breathes shadows to dance across her blind stone eyes.

“Keep him safe.” Sansa cannot help but whisper, her voice an echo in this world of stone and blue petals deep below the earth. “Wherever he is… just keep him safe.”

 

*

 

It rises with the dawn, that sheet of ice and stone and melded magic. Echoes of sunlight dance across it; like a coin, it glitters and shimmers, tempting fingers to reach out and pluck it up and pocket it, rub thumb-prints into its surface: a lucky charm well-palmed over centuries of use. _Ruddy Hall, Mountainside, Lake’s Edge, Whitetree, and now the Wall_ … Jon puts his heels to his horse, rides an arrow-straight path toward it.

Soon, it engulfs the sky, towers over him till he and his garron and his white-and-ruby wolf are made small as ants; ash-dark figures against moon-pale snow. Distantly, he makes out shapes and shadows atop it, black dots bleeding into a sky heavy with cloud. He reins up as the war-horn blows. _Once for rangers returning_. Deep and long, the blast rings out; he presses on, guides the garron toward the black-iron gate.

Overhead, the Wall bears its weight down upon him; he walks the tunnel with the cool breath of wraiths at his back. _Grenn, Pyp, Edd_ … Scattered as ash to the wind, each and all of them — yet he _feels_ them here, sound and solid as if they are of the same flesh-and-blood as he. Ghost waits in the square of daylight up ahead; Jon drops to a knee at the tunnel’s mouth, rasps his fingers through the soft white fur as the sounds of Castle Black rise up thick as woodsmoke to greet him.

“Is this it, boy?” he asks softly. “Is this home?”

The white wolf stares at him with eyes like great red suns, then slips from his fingers and cuts a path toward the hall. Jon leaves the garron cropping tussocks in the cobblestone yard, follows the pawprints in the snow, the bounding beat of his own heart. _Follow it and you’ll see, little crow_. His fingers find the black-iron latch; he enters an age-old world.

He takes a cup of ale beside the hearth, shares soft words with the brothers at their barley-and-bacon stew. Ghost watches him, firelight turning his gaze to rain-soaked rubies; at his back, wraiths swirl as the woodsmoke curling up from the fire. _Grenn, Pyp, Edd, Ygritte_ … Halfway to the cup’s dregs, a steward pushes toward him through the benches, robes raven-spattered, fingers turning a small scroll over and over till it spills from his hands and rolls across the flagstones.

Jon stops it with his boot. “For me?”

“For you, my lord.” Softly spoken, but there is fire in the steward’s eyes. “It came near half a year ago.”

Grey as ash, the wax that seals it; he slides his thumb beneath it. “From where?”

“Winterfell, my lord,” says the steward, telling of a truth already known. “From the Queen in the North.” He inclines his head stiffly. “Her Grace has waited long for your reply… shall I make ready a raven?”

“ _No_.” The word rips from Jon’s throat sudden as a storm; he softens his tone, gives half a smile to quiet the steward, clutching at the letter to hide his trembling fingers as its words tear at his heart. “I will go to her myself.”

Snow is falling as he finds his garron in the yard; it settles its drifts upon his shoulders as he swings into the saddle. Ghost bounds ahead, cutting a path of prints soon swept smooth by the rumble of hoofbeat. _Ruddy Hall, Mountainside, Lake’s Edge, Whitetree, the Wall, and now_ … Overhead, the sky is heavy with snow; but Jon scarce feels the weight of it, his heart a compass cutting south for warmth in place of wraiths.

 

*

 

Sansa keeps the candle burning in the crypts, dresses her aunt in flowers, lays a feather in her father’s lap, repeats her prayer till her knees feel blue as the winter roses scattered across the darkness. _Keep him safe_. Lyanna looks to her with flat grey eyes, her palm outstretched; the candle cupped there burns bright as ever, its flame crimson-gold as weirwood leaves. It limns smooth-cut granite faces, turns auburn hair the same shade as its flickering flame. _Kissed by fire, the wildlings might call it_ …

Her little brown dog waits for her above the earth, follows at her heels as she cuts a path toward the moss-stoned walls of the godswood. Moonlight drifts through bare black boughs, sends silver shivers across the deep pool at the heart tree’s foot; Sansa chases them with a fingertip, watches as the ripples surge and ebb and fade. _Father, Robb, Rickon, Lyanna_ , they seem to whisper, soft as footsteps through fallen leaves.

“Jon,” she says softly. “ _Jon_ …”

No more than a breath, yet still her voice scatters ripples as stars across the deep black pool. She gazes at them, reaches out to smooth their eddies, freezes as a rustle sounds behind her.

Sansa sees the wolf first, but not before her little brown dog does. Soft she is, that little brown bitch; but she turns a wolf herself now, skinny shoulders bristling, teeth bared to defend her fire-haired mistress. _Like Lady, like a little wolf_. Growls fade to a muted whine as a white shadow steps out from amongst the trees, turns ruby eyes to the little brown dog, quiets her with a lick, then settles on his haunches and turns those great red suns to gaze quietly at Sansa.

“Jon?” she says softly. “ _Jon_ …”

A ghost in black steps out from the darkness, wearing weariness in every line of his weathered face; but his smile is bright as the snow dusting his shoulders. Like a spider’s web, that smile: gossamer threads tangling at her heart, silk slicing through blood and bone like steel, pushing in through the wounds that most lethal of weapons — _hope_.

Blindly, she reaches for him.

 

*

 

Later, she looks at him with questions glowing in her eyes. Sunlit sea, sapphires, cool blue water; how he has missed that steady gaze — and the heart that beats the blood that warms it. He takes her hand when she offers it, runs her fingertips over his lips, revels in the scent of her skin, the _warmth_ of her.

“I got your letter,” he says at last, quieting the way she looks at him. “ _Come home_ , it said. Nothing more, nothing less… save your name in ash-dark ink at the bottom of the page.”

Sansa runs her thumb the ridge of his cheekbone. “Need I have said more?”

Jon only shakes his head, bites his lip to stem the sting of tears pricking at his throat. She leans forward in her chair till their brows rest together. His heartbeat slows till it matches the thrum of blood at her pulse-point. _Follow it and you’ll see, little crow_ … Honey-sweet, the powder of her breath on his cheek; he would drown in it, if he could.

“I wanted to greet you as a queen,” she says softly. “Cold, cutting…”

“You could never be cold, Sansa.” He runs his fingers the curve of her jaw, tucks a ruby strand back behind her ear. “Your heart is warm as your hair… kissed by fire, the wildlings might call it.”

She sighs at that. He is only halfway to registering the sound when her lips press against his own, red-warm as the fire they sit beside. It is a gentle kiss, a buss that lasts for half a heartbeat; but it lingers long after their lips have cooled.

 _Ruddy Hall, Mountainside, Lake’s Edge, Whitetree, the Wall, and now_ … Jon lifts his face to press a kiss to her brow, closes his eyes, feels the tears run salt-streaks down his cheeks as he fills his lungs with the spice-and-cherry scent of her fire-kissed hair. _Home_.

 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

>  **NB** : Something gentle to soothe the weary hearts of show-watchers up and down the land… I caught wind of _that_ ending and just had to remedy it here in my own little way. Let me know what you think! ❤️


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